Max Headroom: Desdinova
by ElegantButler
Summary: with the Earth now unlivable, Bryce and several of his counterparts have been relocated to the distant planet of Desdinova
1. Chapter 1

Max Headroom: Desdinova

-CHAPTER 01-

They spaceship landed in a field of something that bore a striking resemblance to grass.

It wasn't grass, Bryce told himself. Grass was something that grew on Earth and was green. This was orange, and the blades were a little coarser.

Jenny looked at him for a second. Then she turned and looked out the window at the not-grass that was growing around them.

"Think it's dangerous?" she asked.

"One way to find out," Bryce told her. He headed into the ship's cargo hold and opened one of the cold storage units. Selecting an orange and a sausage, he returned to the main cabin. He peeled the orange and tore free a segment.

"No need to use a full orange," he said, sniffing the slice to make sure it was still good. Nodding he took one more slice then handed the rest to Jenny. "Hang on a second."

He tossed the spare segment into the orange not-grass and waited. The segment did not dissolve or disappear, which was good. But there was still one more test to perform. He looked around for something sharp. Then, finding nothing bit his tongue, just hard enough to draw a little blood. He politely spat some on the sausage, then tossed it outside. After several minutes, nothing happened.

"Okay, we know that's safe," he told Jenny as he opened the door, went outside, and retrieved the items, which he put into the ship's waste disposal unit.

"Man-eating grass? Really?" Jenny asked.

"Let's not make assumptions about anything until we've learned all we can about it," Bryce told her.

Jeremy and Alan were the next to awaken, followed by Susan, Laura, Nicholas and a number of others whom they hadn't been introduced to yet.

"M-m-morning, folks!" Max called out cheerfully to them. "Welcome welcome welcome to Desdinova!"

There was a cheer from the group. Then Nicholas looked around and spoke

"Where's Bennett and that Japanese lady?"

Alan searched the cryo units. Some of them turned out to have a leaky seal which had resulted in the deaths of their inhabitants. He looked up at Bryce and the others.

"Bennett's dead," he reported. "Along with the Japanese woman, and three of the kids from Nicholas's class."

Nicholas went over and looked at them. "Terrance Clary, Rick Stubbins, and George Izzard." he told them.

Max noted the names in the ship's computer.

"So, first order of things we need to do is bury our dead," Bryce said. "Then we need to use the medical equipment that was packed on board to find out if anyone is sick. We should quarantine any such persons until they have recovered. We don't know what a sickness that came from Earth will do to the ecosystem. And we need that ecosystem to survive."

"Aren't you being a little over-cautious?" Alan asked.

"If we had moved to New York, or Lisbon, or Kuala Lumpur, then maybe this would be overly cautious," Bryce conceded. "But we're ten million light years from Earth. What we have in our cargo hold and what's out there right now is all that stands between us and the Grim Reaper. So unless you're in a hurry to meet him, then no I don't think so."

Jeremy and Alan exchanged glances.

"Kuala Lumpur?"


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

"How are we going to bury the bodies?" Jenny asked. "We have gardening equipment and all that. But, what about the decomposition?"

"That's a good question," Bryce said.

"We could disassemble the cryo units and use those," Nicholas suggested.

"No," Bryce replied. "We can't. Those units are powered by a single system. It's like the lights on a Christmas tree. Remember, we have livestock still in cryo stasis. We can't revive them until we either find a local food source that's safe for them, or figure a way to introduce safe plants that won't overwhelm the ecosystem."

"What about cannibalism?" Someone asked.

Jenny made a face which Bryce didn't blame her for.

"That's disgusting," Bryce stated. "And it wouldn't work. If you've ever eaten chicken, you know there's always some meat left on the bones. It might not be much, but even a few pieces is enough to release bacteria into the ecosystem."

"Cremation," Jeremy suggested.

"Dioxins," Bryce pointed out. "We'd have to remove any dental fillings if they have them. And even if we did that for the younger departed, we don't know if Bennett or his translator had anything like a pacemaker artificial hip."

"So, what do we do? We can't just leave them to rot!" Jenny pointed out.

"No," Bryce said. "we need to reactivate their cryo stasis pods. That will give us time to create a crematorium that will keep the dioxins from entering the atmosphere."

Bryce went to the ship's computer and turned to the monitor. "Max."

"Here." Max returned.

"Max, I need you to reactivate the cryo pods holding Izzard, Clary, and Stubbins."

There was a noise nearby as the pods were turned back to active mode.

Jenny turned to the rest of the group.

"Jeremy," she said, "I want you and Laura to come with me to get the planters and seeds from the cargo room. We need to collect a sample of the local soil and test for compatibility. We do have some soil of our own, but it's limited. And while we have enough to support us. But our population will grow over time, and as it does we will not have enough soil to support the amount of vegetables, fruits, and grains we need to grow as a food supply for us or our livestock."

"They really thought things through when they sent us here," Nicholas grumbled as Jenny and her group headed into the ship's cargo hold.

"If we'd stayed on Earth, we'd have died," Bryce told him, sternly. "We can survive here. But we all need to work together and work hard."

"Why don't we go back to Earth?" Susan asked. "Maybe it's cleaned up by now?"

"We don't have the power," Bryce said. "I'm going to turn the ship's power off and we're going to leave it that way until we can figure out a way to create a solar panel that will work with a blue sun. I don't want to risk an uncontrolled power-out. I don't know what it would do to Max. And we're going to need him down the road."

"What about local animals?" Alan asked. "Would the plants we add be toxic to them?"

"That's a good point," Bryce replied. "We'll have to build greenhouses to keep our plants off limits to the local wildlife."

Alan nodded in agreement.

"Now, I want to create a catalog of the local animals," Bryce told them. "Each of us is going to be given a blank book and pencils. I know it's not what most of you are used to recording with, but they don't require electricity. If you see an animal, write down it's description. And if it seems safe to do so, observe and record its movements and activities."

"What about local people?" Jeremy asked. "We don't know if this planet has any life similar to us or not."

"Max?" Bryce asked. "What did you observe during your fly over?"

"There are sev-sev-several indigenous species including the local equivalent of reptile, mammal, and am-am-amphibian." Max explained, "However there are no bipedal species other than the crew of this ship ship ship."

Bryce nodded. "Thanks, Max."


	3. Chapter 3

-CHAPTER 3-

Over the next few weeks, the group discovered several animals including a small flying mammal which Jenny named a Eumo which resembled a fruit bat, a possum-like creature that Laura named a Phala which made a sound similar to a cat's meow, and a reptilian animal that Bryce named a Varana.

Jeremy and Alan had explored a nearby forest and discovered that there was at least one carnivorous species that was native to that environment.

"We can't all live in the ship forever," Bryce pointed out. "The population growth over the years will prohibit that."

"Unless we use some form of population control," Alan suggested. "One birth for every death."

"No," Jenny shook her head. "I won't subject the people of this world to something like that."

"She's right," Bryce agreed. "We're human beings. Not expendable commodities. We'll have to use a few trees to make shelters. I suggest we create three apartments to minimize the number of trees we'll need to cut down. Each one should hold two older settlers plus an equal number of children."

Jenny glanced down at herself, a simple movement which Bryce did not miss. He understood the reason very well. Despite their intentions not to, he and Jenny had become emotionally attached since their arrival. Their days had been very busy with arranging and assisting in the many studies and discussions, not to mention maintaining their first greenhouse. But the nights were quiet once the younger generation had gone to sleep.

It had been on one such night that Bryce and Jenny were sitting up alone. They were looking at the alien stars that glittered above them. Three small moons hung in the sky, one of which was full while the other two were a pair of slivers, one thick and bright the other dimmer and the thinnest of slivers.

Bryce didn't know why, but he felt his heart swell at the sight of it. Jenny seemed to feel the same way as she leaned closer to him for warmth and other reasons.

They had shared their first kiss that night. A kiss that had led to so much more.

Bryce suspected that Jeremy and Laura were also a couple.

"We should discuss what to do about couples who wish to become exclusive," Jenny said when he told her about this. "Do we want to invoke the old tradition of weddings? Or do we simply want to establish a custom of making a witnessed declaration of unity?"

"We'll discuss it with the others tomorrow," Bryce told her.

But things had been too busy the next day, so the matter did not have a chance to come up.

Now, three weeks later, Jenny had her own reasons for bringing it up again.

"We need to talk about how we're going to establish family units," she said to the others. "What needs to be discussed is whether we want full weddings or just something much simpler? Something Bryce and I have thought of calling a declaration of unity."

"Why not make both an option?" Alan suggested.

"Why do we even need to bring this up?" Nicholas wanted to know. He sounded as annoyed as any kid who has to listen to such matters.

"Because," Bryce said, simply, leaving it at that.

Laura's face lit up with understanding as she turned to Jenny.

"You're pregnant, aren't you?"

"Really?" Susan asked, excitedly.

"I don't know for certain yet," Jenny admitted. "But it certainly looks that way."

"I thought I noticed you two hanging out together a lot," Jeremy said to Bryce.

Bryce shrugged, smiling at Jenny who smiled back.

"Have you thought of a name?" Susan asked. "I think Sally's a pretty name."

"Well, we're not even sure if we're having a baby yet," Jenny reminded her. "But, I agree. Sally is a nice name for a little girl."

"I think if it's a boy we should name it Edison," Bryce told her.

"Let's wait until we're sure about this before we start coming up with names," Jenny suggested. "We don't want to get too excited if it's a false alarm."

"What are we going to do about baby food and stuff?" Alan asked. Now that the possibility of an infant was looming before them, there was a lot to discuss. "Milk won't be a problem, certainly. But eventually we'll need to provide solid food for the babies."

"We can make some baby food with the kitchen tools on the ship," Laura said. "My mother made homemade baby food for us all the time. She said as long as you don't make it spicy and grind it up fine enough. And there's enough liquid, you can turn almost anything into baby food."

"You didn't happen to pack any of your mother's recipes?" Jenny asked her.

"Sorry, no," Laura said. "I don't think any of us knew we were coming here when we left home. They wanted to keep our departure a secret. Didn't want to panic those we had to leave behind."

Jenny's eyes began to water and she leaned on Bryce as tears began to fall. She couldn't help think of her mother who was long dead and the maybe child who would never know his or her grandma.


End file.
